


Saving You For Once

by okoriwadsworth



Series: Saving Each Other [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry Allen Interacts with the Speed Force, F/M, Laurel Lance is the Black Canary, Oliver Queen is The Green Arrow, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26410102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okoriwadsworth/pseuds/okoriwadsworth
Summary: Barry Allen is running out of time, and out of speed. But he gets a miracle, and uses it to give Oliver Queen the life he deserves.
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen
Series: Saving Each Other [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929484
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Saving You For Once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ray_Writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/gifts).



Barry Allen was desperate. The watch Caitlin had given him, the one that was telling him precisely how much of the speed force was still left in his body, was telling him that he had almost nothing left. He couldn’t be the man he wanted to be, the husband Patty deserved and the son Joe needed, if he didn’t have his speed. Being the Fastest Man Alive wasn’t just a cool nickname he occasionally traded on to have charity races with Usain Bolt or Sanya Richards-Ross to keep a food pantry open, it was the best part of him. Barry had always felt most like the person he wanted to be when he was running. Full of joy and love, able to ignore all the pain and sorrow life had seemed intent on heaping upon him, and able to make sure no one suffered in the way he suffered.

But now, it hurt to say out loud, that was all gone. Cisco, Caitlin, and everyone else they had called on had tried. They had all tried. But, it appeared, there was nothing he could do. So, sitting in his office, he dwelled on all the things he loved about it. He remembered the first time he ran, for real. The look on Cisco and Caitlin’s face, that shock and awe as he burst through what most people should have been able to do, was always going to be a memory that stuck with him. The sheer giddiness in Joe’s voice when he figured out that he now had a taste-tester for all the stuff he had wanted to make, but couldn’t eat for fear of failing his police fitness test. Even though Joe had always struggled with him being a hero, the everyday parts of being the Flash were the things that made him understand why he had to.

Every good memory, every lovely thing that happened, he dwelled on it, committed it to memory. And then, in front of him, he saw it. His mom.

But that couldn’t be right. That couldn’t POSSIBLY be right. That would mean that, somehow, he had managed to revive the speed force. Even though he didn’t know how in the world he had managed to pull this trick off, he was not about to do anything but take it.

So, feeling the familiar feeling of golden-rod colored lightning flow through his eyes, he ran towards his mother, towards his first true love and felt himself back in that old familiar place he had been so many times before.

“Barry, my beautiful boy” Nora-as-the-Speedforce said, a smile crossing her lips. “We have never been as proud of you as we are right now. You were willing to give up everything to save the multiverse, and when you brought us back to life, we knew what we had to do. We will restore your speed first, before we tell you about our gift.” And with an index finger to his forehead, Barry felt his body again utterly filled with the speedforce and it was like he was himself again. He couldn’t be selfish with this though. It meant great things for Wally too, and for Jesse Wells-West who he had married after they had found each other again. He could feel the connection slowly rebuilding, growing to the strength it had been at when he fought Bloodwork and Devoe.

“And now, to our gift, Barry. We will send you back to any time period in order to save one person, to give one person the life and the love you think they deserve. This will mean you stay there and live your life from that moment as the Flash. Only you, and that person, will ever know what you did. Who do you choose?”

Instantly, Barry knew. Oliver Queen. He had been there through Oliver’s darkest moments, through the times Oliver thought he was beyond saving, beyond being redeemed. And yet, Oliver had gotten up and kept trying to be better, to be the hero his city needed. In the end, he had been so ready to give up everything that he lost his life to put things right. And now Barry could fix that, give him the love Oliver deserved? He could find Patty again, and Cisco and Caitlin. He was sure of that.

But to give his brother, the finest and best hero he knew, the chance to have a rich and full life? The life he had deserved? There wasn’t even a choice.

“Oliver Queen. Starling City Docks 2007. That is the man I want to save. The man who helped me save the world deserves his own win, his own victory.”

Opening a breach to that time period, Nora-as-the-Speedforce walked up to him and kissed him on the forehead.

“You were always my favorite, Barry. Never forget that. Now…. **RUN, Barry, RUN**!”

 ** _At the Starling City Docks in 2007_** …….

\----------------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

Dinah Laurel Lance was stressing him out. All this talk about moving in together and starting a life scared him, and while he knew he should have been a man and just told her, he couldn’t make himself. So, he did what he always did. He ran from it.

And that’s why his girlfriend’s sister was on the boat sitting in the docks. Oliver was just waiting for his father to show up, and off they would go. Robert off to some business in China, and Oliver to indulge his every desire with Sara.

And then, just at the edge of his hearing, a loud boom. If he didn’t know any better, it sounded like a thunderstorm was hitting but the sky was clear and sunny. Every second that thunder came closer to him, it felt like it was trying to tell him something, like it was stirring up a memory in him somehow. He didn’t want to know. It didn’t matter.

Just standing here, thinking about what he was about to do, made him realize just how SAD this whole thing was. What kind of person was he? He loved Laurel, heart and soul, and knew he just needed to tell her he needed some peace and quiet before he went all-in on moving with her. She’d understand that.

At that moment, though, a streak of lightning came to a full stop in front of him. When it stopped, there was a man who had somehow been the streak standing in front of him, a wide soul-deep smile on his face. Before he could even say a word, he bolted into the boat and grabbed what looked like Sara Lance and sped off back towards her home. As Oliver stood on the middle of the docks, his jaw dropped as to what he had just seen, he saw a cab pull up and his true love was there. Instantly, he knew what he wanted.

(Barry Allen’s POV)

As he put Sara Lance to bed, realizing he was probably making it harder for her to become the White Canary, Barry sped back to the docks with his mind on his own love life. When he got home, he was going to find Patty. He knew Cisco and Caitlin were working at STAR Labs, and that relationship needed to grow at its own pace. They were so perfect for each other, so RIGHT, that he didn’t want to speed that up and make things awkward for them.

And when he got back to the docks, Oliver and Laurel were sobbing in each other’s arms. In that exact moment, he knew he had done the right thing, made the right decision. But before he made the long run to Central City, he knew the one thing he had to do.

“Get on the boat, Mr. Queen” he said with his vibrated voice disguising his smile. “Ms. Lance will wait for you; I know she will. But to be the man you want to be, the man she needs you to be, she needs you to get on that boat.”

Nodding his head, Oliver gets on the boat. He didn’t know why, but it felt like he could trust that red-suited man. Like somehow, he had known him all his life.

As the boat left Starling City Docks, the Flash turned to the woman who would soon become the Black Canary and handed her a piece of paper.

“Take a leave of absence from CNRI, and go to this exact location. Tell her you need to be trained, to be molded. It will be a painful thing, but as long as Oliver is gone, you need to be ready for when he returns. This woman will help you do that, help you be ready for what Oliver will need you to be when he returns.”

Speeding off in a burst of golden-colored lightning, Barry figured it was time to start his own life.

**_Epilogue…._ **

\-------------------------------------------

As it turned out, Laurel had taken to being trained by Lady Shiva with grace. She loved Oliver, and knew that she would be his when he came back. And for five years, every punch she threw and kick she landed was in service of that. When Oliver returned to Starling City, it was her who greeted him at the hospital in Hong Kong. And when he told her, because he had promised himself to be honest with her, about his father’s dying with, she swore to fight alongside of him. And soon, the Green Arrow and the Black Canary were dating. Then, they were married, and parents after that.

And Barry Allen, although they never really knew why, was the happiest of all.


End file.
